'Through The Arch' Talk 3

Talk Three – The Emerging Structure of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter
19th and early 20th Century
Well hello again companions and welcome to this the third of my short talks on the history and
development of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland and in particular the order of
Royal Arch Freemasonry. Welcome to those who are listening as companions but also just as
listeners who want to find out more about our history and our development. We are an organization
committed, absolutely committed, to companionship and service of others and that's what forms the
basis of the order of Royal Arch Freemasonry in Scotland. Today I'm recording from Angus on a very
dreary wet day in the middle of June and of course that's what we might expect for Scottish weather
but I'm also sporting the tie of Glasgow Cryptic Council, No.50 and if you've never studied what goes
on in a Cryptic Council I would encourage you to do so as the degrees are wonderful and offer great
enlightenment about the moral teachings behind the symbols and the stories that are to be told. If
you want to see the degree worked to its best then I recommend that you actually go and see it
done at Glasgow Cryptic Council, No.50, I was particularly moved and enjoyed attending there last
year.
Now let me get back to where we are in our story, we're entering the Royal Arch history in Scotland
in the 19th and the 20th century and there's a great uncertainty around about the structures and
much discussion which is loved by Freemasons about the degrees and how to move forward and
who’ll be responsible for what degree. In 1819 the Royal Grand Conclave and the Supreme Grand
Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland met to agree who would govern the degrees they had in common,
there was some 19 degrees relevant to both orders. 12 degrees associated with Royal Arch
Freemasonry as it was practice then, were then placed under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Grand
Royal Arch Chapter for Scotland. Some of these degrees quite rightly fell into abeyance and were
quickly left unused. Others such as the excellent, the super excellent and their Arch degrees were
combined to what we know to and refer to as the passing of the veils within the excellent masters
degree. This sorting out is something that organisations have to do on occasions and to move them
forward in terms of their understanding, but above all to make them fit for purpose in the times in
which they are placed. This period in our Royal Arch history, the 19th and the early 20th century, we
sorted things out and we managed during this period to make sense of the number of strands of
Freemasonry that had been brought together in what we now call Royal Arch Freemasonry, and
from it we created a coherent system the system of the order of Royal Arch Freemasons in Scotland.
Other degrees developed into what we now know as the Royal Arc Mariners degrees and the
creation of Lodges and Councils that we can recognise today. These degrees of the captivity of all the
Babylonish pass were all worked under the Royal Arch Charter at the times. At this time membership
of the Royal Arch was restricted to masters in the chair or past masters of craft Lodges, this proved
to be too restrictive and the requirements were removed in the middle of the 19th century and to
this day there is no requirement to be a master of the craft to become a principal in our Scottish
chapters. On a personal note I did the principal chair of degrees of the Royal Arch before I became
master of a Lodge.
Let's go back to our history then, from around 1830s the mark degree was in Scotland solely the
responsibility of the Royal Arch degrees however by 1860 there was joint jurisdiction in this degree
with a supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland and the Grand Lodge of Scotland and this
subsists to today. So from this period of sorting out the degrees and establishing modern workable
and sustainable systems of Freemasonry emerged what we knew as Royal Arch Freemasonry the
mark degree, the excellent master's degree and the Royal Arch degree alongside their relevant chair
degrees made the foundation that our order developed and moved into the 20 th century to push
itself into a world that awaited it. In the early part of the 20th century some of the regulations that
were around us required further expansion, for example let me refer to the Cryptic Council degrees.
They had always been under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland
and it was a kind of loose arrangement until 1960. The Cryptic Council degrees were introduced to
Scotland from Illinois in the United States of America in 1877, something that's often forgotten and
again a rich part of our history that much of Royal Arch Freemasonry came to Scotland from others.
At the beginning of the 20th century new Chapters were issued with charters and also the workings
of Lodges and Councils and Cryptic Councils were set up under their own charters. Administrative
and jurisdictionally the Cryptic Councils and the Lodges and Councils along with their degrees
worked in them, came under the government of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland
and that remains to today.
Anyone who tells you that Freemasonry is fixed and unchangeable really doesn't understand the
system. As we grow in understanding and as we grow in the principles which are fixed in our Order,
such as the principle of companionship and the principle of charity which are key to Royal Arch
Freemasonry, we grow an understanding and how to deliver that in a new world in which faces us on
a day to day basis. This system of degrees was worked to engage the companions and to keep them
moving forward in progression of understanding and knowledge and if you think about it, by this
time the Royal Arch Freemasons degrees were actually placed into a cohesive and story that moved
through a number of important lessons to make good men better men. And he also engaged visiting
companions in the stories that were told as they moved round from Chapter to Chapter or from
Lodge and Council or Council and it prepared and sought to prepare an understanding about what
the building of the Second Temple brought to our understanding of how to be good people. Our
history at this time can be described as a sorting out period, a period of sorting out in establishing a
coherent and presentable system known as the order of Scottish Freemasonry that would take us
into the 20th and 21st century. Yes it was confused, yes there's a lack of clarity in this period but
there is no lack of wishing to make the system presentable and fit for the age in which it was to
come and it came into that 20th century at a period just before the First World War when there was
much need in terms of an understanding that what it meant to be a companion and what it meant to
be charitable. So we stand at the end of that period, that first hundred years from the establishment
of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland and we've reached in our world history the
momentous events of the First World War.
In my next talk I want to look again briefly at what the last hundred years has offered to Royal Arch
Freemasonry with its expansion with its decline and possibly at the end about how we are going to
tackle our order in the world in which we are in today
Happy companionship, look after yourselves and I look forward to being with you in the future.
M.E. Companion Joseph J Morrow

First Grand Principal

'Through The Arch' Talk 3

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Talk Three – The Emerging Structure of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter

19th and early 20th Century

M.E. Companion Joseph J Morrow

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